I let the subject drop, but I still believed in my suggestion. We’d joke about it when he’d come. “Have you given her the milk yet?” I’d say.

“No,” he’d snap back, “but I’m thinking of giving my wife a $79 present, unless another pretty mother starts playing on my sympathies.”

Every time I’d ask the question, it seemed he lightened up a bit more.

Then, six days before Christmas, it happened. He arrived with a tremendous smile and a glint in his eyes. “I did it!” he said. “I gave her the milk as a Christmas present. It wasn’t easy, but what did I have to lose? It was gone, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said, rejoicing with him. “But you’ve got to really mean it in your heart.”

“I know. I do. And I really feel better. That’s why I have this good feeling about Christmas. Those kids had lots of milk on their cereal just because of me.”

The holidays came and went. On a sunny January morning two weeks later, Ben almost ran up the walk. “Wait till you hear this,” he said, grinning.

He explained he had been on a different route, covering for another milkman. He heard his name being called, looked over his shoulder and saw a woman running down the street, waving money. He recognized her immediately—the woman with all the kids, the one who didn’t pay her bill. She was carrying an infant in a tiny blanket, and the woman’s long brown hair kept getting in her eyes.

“Ben, wait a minute!” she shouted. “I’ve got money for you.”

Ben stopped the truck and got out.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I really have been meaning to pay you.” She explained that her husband had come home one night and announced he’d found a cheaper apartment. He’d also gotten a night job. With all that had happened, she’d forgotten to leave a forwarding address. “But I’ve been saving,” she said. “Here’s $20 toward the bill.”

“That’s all right,” Ben replied. “It’s been paid.”

“Paid!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean? Who paid it?”

“I did.”

She looked at him as if he were the Angel Gabriel and started to cry.

“Well,” I asked, “what did you do?”

“I didn’t know what to do, so I put an arm around her. Before I knew what was happening, I started to cry, and I didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was crying about. Then I thought of all those kids having milk on their cereal, and you know what? I was really glad you talked me into this.”

“You didn’t take the $20?”

“Heck no,” he replied indignantly. “I gave her the milk as a Christmas present, didn’t I?”

(Originally published in Reader’s Digest, December 1992.)